Coach Madeline walks through five post-run stretches targeting hips, spine, and calves: hip rocking, sprinter's lunge with reach, bootstraps, sky reaches, and wall calf stretches. She cues foot positioning, breathing, and how to progress each move for better range of motion after runs.
Chapters
Hey guys, it's Madeline. I wanna take us through a good mobility routine that we can do after a run. So we're gonna start with hip rocking. You can do this shoes on or shoes off. I just kinda prefer shoes off 'cause it gets a little bit more into the feet and ankles. But for the hip rocking, we'll start in a half kneeling position. That back foot, that toe's facing in, heel is wide. And then I'm gonna sit back aiming to get that butt to the heel. Don't feel like you have to start all the way back. Feel free to work your way into it. This is stretching out the quad as well as the front of that hip flexor. This top leg is straight. I'm flexing that toe towards my face to really stretch out the hamstring. And then rocking into that hip flexor and quad again, really open up that knee. This is also stretching out that back foot and ankle as well. Great stretch. This is hip rocking. I would do about 5 to 10 reps at least each side with these, but I'm just gonna go through a few for time's sake. So a few on the other side. Then from hip rocking, we'll go to a sprinter's lunge with a reach. So still in that half kneeling position, then I'm really pushing those hips forward, trying to get that butt towards that heel and really opening up that knee in the front to feel a good stretch through the adductor and the groin. Then from there, I'm reaching that elbow towards the mat. Big crunch, big stretch, rounding that shoulder and then pushing into that palm. Big stretch, trying to really spread those hands open. Reach back, get a little twist in that thoracic spine, aiming to get that elbow towards the ground. I'm really close. If you can get the elbow towards the ground, aiming to get that shoulder to the ground and kind of rotate through, just trying to get some big rotation in that thoracic spine as well as really open up those hips. After that, we'll go into bootstraps, one of my least favorites. This one we can start pretty wide, especially as we get warmed up. I'm bending forward, getting a big stretch through my hamstrings. You can grab those toes, really squish those fingers with those toes. Big round through that spine. Then I'm dropping the hips, really opening up those knees with those elbows, really trying to realign the spine. Shoulders back, chest open, dropping into those hips. Big round through the spine. And realign nice and straight. These ones are hard for me. If you're getting good at them, you can slowly walk those feet in. Dr. Sean can do them with the feet insanely narrow, which really is annoying. But yeah, those are bootstraps. From bootstraps, we'll go into sky reaches. So same idea, kind of sinking into that squat. You can open up those knees with those elbows and then big rotate to the side, looking over that hand. The other side. Same idea, want to keep those feet pretty forward to stretch out those ankles the best you can. Those are sky reaches. Then after sky reaches, going to stretch out the calves a little bit. So we can come on over to a wall and we're going to do a wall calf stretch. So I can kind of prop my toes up, ball of the foot up on that wall. And I'll start with the leg straight, and then I'm kind of rocking forward. Gonna feel this a lot in that upper calf. A few reps with that leg straight, then I'm gonna bend into the knee. A few reps with that knee bent to get a little bit lower into that soleus and Achilles. So just to run through that again, we will start with hip rocking, a few reps there, then move into sprinter's lunge. With a reach, nice little transition into those hips, into that rotation, then into those sky reaches, or into bootstraps first, sorry, then into those sky reaches, and finishing with that calf stretch. Cool, happy running, guys!
